Sunday, October 08, 2006

Persecuted Canadian Christians? Or annoying, whiny-ass titty babies? We report, you decide.

Recently, Canada's Christian wanker community has been celebrating the idea of a "Defense of Religions Act," which would allegedly give public (note that operative word there -- public) officials the right to refuse to marry same-sex couples. The Religious Right's attitude to this idea is, predictably, one of overwhelming support since they feel so terribly, terribly victimized by having to, you know, hang out in any way with those kind of people, know what I mean?

Luckily, it just so happens that I wrote a piece a few months back that applies almost perfectly to this situation, so I'm going to refer you there, after which you can come back and we'll tie up a few loose ends. Take your time. I can hang out. Dum de dum dum ...

Ah, welcome back. So, did you catch all that? Even though I would think that the point is self-evident, let me pound it home with respect to that odious proposed DoRA. Absolutely no one is telling Canada's wingnut right who they must marry. No one. Those ignorant, Bible-thumping fuckwits are totally free to associate with anyone they want, and discriminate in any way they choose whatsoever, and I would be the first person to defend their right to do so.

Until ...

Until the moment they start taking public funds, and that's when everything changes. It's hard to believe one has to explain this to the aforementioned fuckwits, given the recent dust-up over the federal funding of the Status of Women Canada, where one probably remembers that the main point of contention that was driven home over and over and over was that Canada's conservatives were furious about a given "agenda" being supported by public funds. That was their objection -- the public funding -- and those yahoos went all out to put a stop to it. And yet ... and yet ... those same dingbats have now flip-flopped entirely and are demanding the right to push their bigoted agenda using (you guessed it) public funds. Does it get any funnier (or more brazenly hypocritical) than that?

The lesson from my earlier piece should be obvious -- Canada's wankers have the right to discriminate any way they want in terms of what marriage ceremonies they elect to perform in their own churches. Or they can get a job that is funded by the taxpayers. They shouldn't be allowed to do both. You can't, as they say, have your cake and eat it, too. Choose.

But if the above is still too intellectual for some readers, let me make it simpler. In Matthew 22:21, we have Jesus himself admonishing his listeners:

"Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's."

Now, while there has always been controversy regarding just what Jesus meant here, the most obvious interpretation would seem to be that, while Christians had an obligation to their God, they had a similar obligation to Caesar. Recasting this to fit the situation, one might suggest that, if any of these whiny Christian bigots chooses to take a job that is publicly funded by Caesar, then he has a responsibility to render unto Caesar a full day's work according to Caesar's original job description. If he can't do that, then maybe he should find a job that doesn't involve taking a paycheque from Caesar in the first place, know what I'm saying?

As hard as it is to believe, Jesus and I are pretty much in agreement on this one. Enjoy it -- it doesn't happen often.

IN SNARK, AS IN COMEDY, TIMING IS EVERYTHING. Some days, I swear, God is just being good to me. Following a SiteMeter referral link, we end up at this piece, where Canada's own Batshit-Crazy Catholic Loon™ (You remember Suzanne, right? The driving force behind the anti-SWC blogburst? Yeah, that loon) gets all teary-eyed and persecuted when she writes (emphasis added):

It's clear from the cases of Scott Brockie, Chris Kempling, the Knights of Columbus who were penalized for not renting their hall to "married" lesbians, WE ARE NOT PROTECTED.

6 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I've had a couple of the Brockie/Kempling/etc. morons on my blog lately. One of them threw and additional curve at me that I had forgotten about over the years - Delwin Vriend - claiming that his case restricted religious freedom.

If we wanted to see real christian persecution, and integration of church and state, we would actually implement law and policy that recognizes the inerrancy of the bible. No cherry-picking verses, such as drawing attention to anti-gay scripture while ignoring other things that christians conveniently ignore or become strangely apologetic over. Let's follow the entire bible. If it's religious freedom they want, we should give it to them, and require that they actually follow everything the bible states. If we in fact allowed this to happen, christians would truly then become persecuted as we could enact the death penalty for adultery, ban consumption of seafood and certain fabrics and agricultural activities, jail children who talk back to their parents, shun menstrating women...the list goes on. The result would be that Canada's christian population would either be (a) in jail for not living up to their inerrant bible, or (b) dead or disabled from the stoning and other punishments the bible calls for their misdeeds. Only then could christians say they are persecuted. Until then, fuck off. Being called out for the right to discriminate against fellow citizens, that's not persecution and it's very whiny-ass. To call that persecution and is clearly against everything their alleged hero, Jesus, stood for, if he in fact existed at all. Isn't there something to the effect that he who casts the first stone?

Waterboy : Not sure if you caught Charles McVety on "The Big Picture" but when Avi Lewis asked him about cherry-picking verses to suit his own agenda, McVety explained that this isn't a problem because "the bible is self-interpreting".